[DCM]
Tilter at Windmills
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Malfred’s comments (and most of other folks') are spot-on. You’ve spent a ton of points on characters, but most of them have pretty bad equipment. Also, all of your units except your Eternal Guard are basically at suboptimal sizes. This means that a lot of points have been invested for a less than great return. If you’re playing with similarly-inexperienced friends, this is not too big a deal, and if you’re all building lists with a similar lack of knowledge, it’s not horrible. If, on the other hand, you are playing with more experienced people, or your friends are consulting the internet, or if they just luck into better builds, you are in trouble.
The Ancient is fine. Very powerful. You don’t need all of those upgrades, but they’re all useful. The Radiants and the Netlings are the most important ones, if you were to be trimming points.
The Bow of Loren is a fun item, but really only of use against T3 unarmored stuff. Which means usually enemy elves, or Fast Cav. It’s okay, but on average dice you’re still only looking at around 1 killed model per turn. Is that what you want an 154pt model spending his time on? The only really GOOD build with the Bow is on a Lord, combined with the Arcane Bodkins, so you can kill knights. For an Alter Noble, you’re much better off using a Great Weapon, plus any combination of Helm of the Hunt, Hail of Doom Arrow, Amber Pendent and/or 3+ Ward Save item. The Briarsheath isn’t bad either.
The other noble is kind of silly. The Spear of Twilight doesn’t give you +1 Strength unless you’re mounted. If he were on an elvensteed, he’d be much better.
The Spellsinger is almost a complete waste of points. At L2 with no other spell support, it will practically never successfully cast a spell. Arcane Bodkins average ½ a hit, ½ a wound = .25 dead enemy models (assuming T3 targets, long range and no other penalties) each turn. It gets worse if your targets have higher toughness. So in your average game, you are probably spending those points to kill around 1 enemy model. Starfire Arrows have similarly poor percentages, but that one kill at least will force a Panic test, which can have a huge impact against an enemy army with average or poor Ld. It can be fun, though the odds are still against it doing anything major in most games. I love Calaingor’s Staff, but again, with the wizard being the only mage in your army, he will virtually never get a spell through, so having an item which enhances those spells hardly does you any good. If you don’t intend to buy multiple mages, just make your single mage L1 with two Dispel Scrolls. If you actually want a magic phase, take 2-3 L2s, or (probably better) 1 or 2 L2s along with an L3 or L4 wizard in place of the Ancient. But that’d be a substantially different army.
11 Dryads are not needed. Good sizes are 8-10, and the champion is a waste of points unless you’re putting attaching a Branchwraith to the unit. You’d be much better off trimming a few points elsewhere and just taking two units of 8.
Scouts are overpriced at the best of times, but can make useful charge redirectors, since they’re Skirmishers who can Flee from a charge, unlike Wardancers or Dryads. Have you read the main rulebook FAQ, specifically the clarifications on Skirmishers Fleeing from a Charge? Until you’ve read this, understood it, and put it to use to your advantage, you are not a good Warhammer player. And more specifically, without use of those rules, Scouts will pretty much always be an expensive waste of time. 10 Glade Guard would be much better. Once you do learn to use the scouts, you’ll find that 5 with no upgrades gets you all the effect you really need, and the 71 extra points you’re spending will rarely find use. That said, the banner CAN work if you can reliably expect good-sized woods on the table. If you can, it’s a fun little trick, and not a total waste. Just mostly a waste, because a single Great Eagle can marchblock more reliably for 1/3rd the cost.
14 Glade Guard are unwieldy and excessive. 10-12 work great.
5 Treekin are harder to wheel, unless you’re putting one or two of the models in the back rank. It’s actually not a bad idea to put one model in the back rank- if you get flanked, you have two models capable of attacking back instead of just one. I think 4 models is a better unit size, though. You can choose to go 4 wide against an opponent who you think is very unlikely to flank you, or 3 wide with 1 in the back most of the time.
The EG are pretty good. But they really need a BSB to be reliable. The entire point of Stubborn is to be an Anvil that refuses to break and sticks the enemy in place while you flank with a smashy unit like Wardancers, Treekin, Treeman, Wild Riders, or even just Dryads. But on Ld8, there’s roughly a 1/3rd chance they’ll still break. That’s just too big a risk. You need to take a BSB to make this build work.
That’s the final, and most critical piece of the puzzle for this list. You have three Anvils in this army- the ancient and the two EG blocks. Right now you only have the Treeman, the Treekin, and a single unit of Dryads for Hammers. To my mind that’s not quite enough hammers, but the bigger issue is that without the BSB, your anvils can’t reliably do their jobs. You need to turn one of those Nobles above into a BSB, preferably with 3+ Ward Save item or taking the Annoyance from your big Tree, so he can survive in combat.
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The list looks fun but I worry that it is a bit too 'on the fence'
